


some dead man

by thegirl



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - The Red Wedding, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Murder, Resurrection, Revenge, Robb Lives, The Purple Wedding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-18
Updated: 2015-10-18
Packaged: 2018-04-26 23:01:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5023969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegirl/pseuds/thegirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based off the kinkmeme prompt: Robb comes back instead of Catelyn and the King of Winter has a heart of ice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	some dead man

He dies.

His head is a mess of blood and dark halls, cackles and screams and dying words, of rotten breath and tightening hands, it was cold, it was cold, it was cold and dark and wet and dry, it was cramped and empty and dark, cold, it was so very cold, he hears his mother screaming his name, his mother, his father, his wife, his sisters, his brothers, his wolf, his wolf-

Robb Stark awakes in the dark, and _screams._

**.**

“It was very cold,” he tells the brotherhood, voice raw. “Cold and dark.”

He looks at his hands, grey in pallor, and knows he’ll never be Robb Stark again - Robb Stark was a stupid, foolish boy who lost everyone and everything he’d ever loved because he believed in goodness, and light, and kindness and happy endings.

But he’s learnt now, he knows now - in this world, this world where his brothers were murdered, where he was betrayed by his best friend and bannermen, where even guest right was not sacred, in this world where he had to fish his mother’s naked body out of the river she had grown up next to, where his father lost his head and his sister died in the wilderness, there were no happy endings. Robb Stark is gone now.

Only a husk of that boy remains - the Freys have remade him into a monster.

**.**

He never finds Grey Wind’s body, although he searches for days - Harwin tells him the Freys probably made his skin into a rug, and to stop looking.

On the fifth day, Robb finally listens.

**.**

Nobody can stop talking about his demise.

In the taverns, walking down the streets, by rivers and castles and in the forests, he hears his name a thousand times, and everyone thinks he’s dead. The singers are playing the Rains of Castamere almost constantly, some of them putting his name in, even though it doesn’t rhyme. Some defend him, but they’re jibed at until they fall silent - there’s no use protecting a dead man’s name. Some dead man - that was all that was left of Robb Stark. Everyone said so.

They’re not wrong.

**.**

The Twins goes up in flames two weeks after the Red Wedding.

No one is expecting Robb Stark to come walking through the door, let alone in Frey armour, so anyone who recognises his face just shivers and turns away. And what were they to say to their superiors? That the king they killed had been walking around the castle? No, safer not to say anything. No use worrying about a dead man.

_Some dead man,_ Robb thinks, as he’s setting down the last barrel of gunpowder, and almost smiles.

**.**

The hostages taken by the Freys in the aftermath of the Red Wedding are the only ones to survive the blaze - Robb had made sure of that. They all come out of their cells and call him king and lord, but he’s neither of those things anymore.

“Your Grace,” The Greatjon calls him before hugging him so tightly he thinks his bones are going to break “We thought you were lost.”

Robb considers telling him _I was,_ but thinks better of it and just nods.

**.**

The little children are the last ones to be found by the smallfolk, their little arms and legs and torsos disfigured by the flames. They come to the surface two days after, and Robb walks right past them.

**.**

_The gods have spoken,_ people whisper in the street as the remains of House Frey are thrown into a mass grave - no names listed because they still aren’t sure exactly who was who – but they knew they were all gone. The gods would not suffer any of them to live.

_They were cursed the moment they killed the king,_ they all agree.

Nobody plays the Rains of Castamere anymore, and Robb counts it as a victory. A small one, but a victory all the same.

**.**

“Go North,” Robb tells his remaining bannermen, “Tend to your lands. Reap your harvests. It is going to be a long winter.”

“But, your Grace-” Wylis Manderly begins, “The Boltons, they hold Winterfell-”

“Turncloaks,” the Greatjon growls “Traitors, every one.”

“I am not going with you,” Robb tells them, and there is a lull of silence before everyone starts shouting at once. They are all protesting, and Robb closes his eyes. He is tired. He is so tired.

“Your Grace, where will you go?” Patrek Mallister asks “Any of us would be happy to host you-”

“No,” Robb says “You have lost enough for me. I will be going South, and I will be going South alone.”

Marq Piper has fire in his eyes “And what are we to do? Kneel to the Boltons, the murderers? I won’t, I won’t do it-”

The Greatjon is in a similar state, completely beside himself, alternating between confusion and fury “We almost lost you once, we won’t lose you again-”

“If I am with you,” Robb says quietly, yet the whole room falls silent at his words “It will be like painting a target on your backs. For all intents and purposes, I died the day Roose Bolton thrust a dagger into my chest. Act like it. Look after your people, and wait for me. I can’t say how long it will be, but I will come.”

“What if you _don’t_?” Mallister asks.

Robb swallows “My brother Jon, he is on the Wall. Maege and Galbart will have arrived at Greywater Watch by now - they carry my will. I have legitimized him and left him the crown in case of my death. But only make it public if you know I am dead - he is all that remains of my kin. I do not want him hurt for no reason.”

“But Jon Snow is a sworn brother of the Night’s Watch-”

“And he is all that remains.” Robb reminds them “There is no other option, other than letting Winterfell fall into the hands of the Lannisters. I won’t let that happen. Not ever.”

It takes another week to convince his lords, and to write letters to each of his banners he knows has remained loyal to tell them of the preparations, to be delivered in person, not by raven for fear of them being shot out of the sky and all being lost.

“What will you do in the South, Your Grace?” The Greatjon asks “You are but one man.”

Robb gives him a smile, full of teeth and hopes that the part of Grey Wind that still lives on in his heart knows that he is more wolf than man now “One dead man. That makes me more dangerous than anyone may know.”

**.**

He changes names as easily as he changes clothes - one day he is Tom, the next he is Garren, after that it is the turn of Olly and after him comes some poor love-struck fool called Allen who needs to get to King’s Landing as soon as possible to find his love. Somewhere in between them all he dyes his hair black and doesn’t recognise the stranger that stares back at him in the mirror.

At night he is just a body, staring out into the night at the moon and the stars that used to be so beautiful and now just irritate his eyes.

**.**

The capital smells like shit.

Robb, as a child, was told of the opulence of King’s Landing, of the towering Red Keep, the beautiful Great Sept of Baelor, but nobody in any of their great writings mentioned the _smell._

“You new, chick?” The landlady of the tavern Robb had brought a room in asked.

Robb nods. "How can you tell?" 

She smiles wryly at him “It takes about a week to get used to the smell, and all newcomers have the same look on their face. You'll be fine soon, I mean I’m from the Vale, where the air’s as clear as anything, and I manage. Just keep your window closed until you can breathe through your nose again.”

Robb thanks her and departs, and bolts the windows shut that night whilst he plans his next step.

**.**

Margaery Tyrell arrives in a huge procession, in carriage that reflects the sunlight like gold. The smallfolk fawn around her, throwing rose petals beneath the wheels and calling out to her, blessing her good name.

They have forgotten it was her family that caused the famine that she is said to have saved them from in the first place, but they always do. Robb would have been bitter once, but not now.

Robb considers pretty, young, virginal Margaery Tyrell, who has never lost anything or earned anything and goes to marry a second king in a long, long summer, and pities her.

Because winter is coming - he knows, better than anyone else.

**.**

It takes very little time to learn from the gossip of King’s Landing that Arya is gone, as Robb had always known, in his heart. No matter how mother had hoped, and hoped, and hoped, Robb had known if the Lannisters had his youngest sister she wouldn’t have been left out of Sansa’s very first letters, and would be married to some Lannister by now.

Arya was lost.

The boy he’d been would have screamed and cursed at the damning confirmation, would have sworn to burn the world to the ground in vengeance for the little girl who had looked so much like his father. But the creature he is now, carved out of loss and pragmatism - he nods, as if the news is interesting but old, and moves on.

Arya was lost, but Sansa was still around to be saved. Mother would want it. He would have wanted it too, once.

**.**

He gains work in the kitchens of the Red Keep, as they’re hiring an excess of people for the royal wedding. It is so beautifully ironic he almost laughs, but he’s forgotten how to do that since his rebirth.

Robb knows how to fight and lead and plan battles, but the workings of a kitchen utterly perplexes him. However, he learns quickly, helped along by the fact he doesn’t lose hours of sleep at night like everyone else.

Soon, he has been promoted from washing dishes and scrubbing floors to helping bake the pastry of the pie that will be presented to Joffrey and his bride at their wedding feast - he kneads the dough with his head down, goes back to the inn with flour in the roots of his hair and the creases of his face, and waits.

**.**

The first day of 300AL is bright and breezy, and the poison Robb has secreted in his shoe feels awfully like a promise.

Once in the Red Keep, he takes a short cut up to the corridor behind the King’s chambers - Arya had sent a letter telling him about all the secret passages, as she liked to call them, back when she lived, and Robb felt she’d appreciate her knowledge being used to bring their father’s murderer to justice.

But no ordinary justice - _Northern_ justice. The only true kind.

The first part of the plan is simple. One of the birds that was to be baked in the pie had sadly expired the day before - just a pigeon, easily replaceable, he’d made sure of that - and Robb had drained the animal of blood into a bowl and hidden it in an untouched cupboard.

In the morning, he picks it up and once he’s ascertained that no servants are in the room, he opens the hidden door and steps in.

Joffrey isn’t there, of course not, he hadn’t expected him to be, but he imagines for one beautiful moment that the bastard king decided to lay in, and Robb could have had the satisfaction of seeing his eyes bulge as Robb strangled the life out of him.

But no, he didn’t. It was his wedding day after all.

Robb doesn’t remember his wedding day very well - he’d felt ill, and hadn’t been able to stop thinking about his brothers, Bran and Rickon burned and Jon, on the Wall, cursed to a life of duty and loneliness because Father had not taken the appropriate steps after bedding some woman. He remembers very little of the actual ceremony, or his actual wife - he remembers that her hands had been warm as he’d slipped the ring on her fourth finger, and she’d looked at him like he was some kind of messiah.

The pigeon blood message is only found after assassination, as Robb intended - an unfortunate serving girl goes in to take the dead king’s clothes away to make room for his younger brother’s linens, and sees the writing on the wall.

Poor girl was in hysterics, Robb understands, and he knows why.

_THE NORTH REMEMBERS,_ written in blood, is not a comforting sight.

**.**

The second part of the plan is significantly more difficult.

As much as Robb would enjoy killing Joffrey nice and slow, watch the bastard scream and scream, see the life go out of his eyes, it is simply not an option if he is to kill him in front of hundreds of witnesses.

It is not that Robb himself fears death or torture or retribution - he doesn’t really remember what fear tastes like - but that he fears for his sister, or at least knows he should fear for her. He knows that when his message is discovered, the blame will fall on her shoulders, and the window will be very small indeed to spirit her away.

So it must be poison.

Robb waits on the rich and renowned for half a day, carrying the serving tray like he’s been doing it his whole life, discarding any past life as a lordling or a king - Loras Tyrell grins at him in interest, Lord Fossoway asks for some fresh grapes for his pregnant wife he was fawning over and Cersei Lannister orders him to fetch her more wine.

The opportunity is too sweet to miss, and it isn’t hard at all to smile as he hands her her own death quite literally on a silver platter.

Any guilt he would have felt is stamped on the moment that she and her son start laughing at the troupe of dwarves, one of which is meant to be him. Sansa - his sister, his last sister - is staring blankly through them all and Robb tries to catch her eye, but can’t.

Joffrey begins choking half a minute before his mother, the crust of the pie that Robb had been massaging the Strangler into for days doing its deadly work.

Its chaos - complete, and utter chaos - and Robb allows himself some satisfaction as the Queen Mother begins mimicking her eldest’s motions of grasping her throat, mid-sentence as she was screaming for guards to help her son.

In one minute, they are both dead, but Robb doesn’t stick around to watch.

Sansa is standing, and stumbles back away from the table, not tearing her eyes away from the gruesome scene. Robb comes up behind her and pulls at her wrist.

“My lady,” he says, adopting a Stormlander’s inflections “don’t look-”

She turns to look at him, catches sight of his face, and freezes.

“We need to go,” he says, dropping the accent, and lowering his face so only the two of them can hear “We need to go now, while everyone is distracted.”

She stays frozen for another beat, staring at his face as if in a trance, and then snapping out of it and walking towards him on unsteady legs and burying her head in his shoulder, half collapsing over him. Robb sees some nobles doing the same to husbands, children, servants like he is supposed to be, and immediately latches onto her plan.

“There, there,” he says, just loud enough to be heard, in his butchered accent “It will all be over soon.” Even as they walk toward the exit, nobody even glances their way.

When it is over, and people begin looking again, they’re long gone.

**.**

Robb cuts Sansa’s hair with nail scissors when they’re out of the city, cuts it all messy and choppy and short and afterwards dyes it as black as his own hair. Sansa touches it with her fingertips, and smiles. She looks nothing like the girl Robb Stark had known, but he supposes he looks nothing like the boy she knew either.

“You came,” she says, quietly as he shoves the remains down beneath the floorboards, arms wrapped around her knees.

“Yes.”

“They said you were dead,” she tells him, “I believed them. They said mother - is mother still alive?”

“No.” he grimaces at the way her face falls “I’m sorry.”

She shakes her head “Don’t apologize. I doubted you. I gave up. But you _came._ ”

After that, he can barely look at her, guilt roaring in his gut like a fiery inferno which he thinks might eat him alive.

**.**

Robb watches Sansa sleep, as there’s nothing else for him to do.

She looks so much younger, more like the child that left Winterfell to wed a prince, less like the woman that King’s Landing has forced her to become.

The day before he had slit the throat of a farmer that he thought was following them, and she barely even blinked, apathy her new shield against the horrors of the world. The horrors of the world, he reminded himself, that now included him.

.

“You didn’t survive, did you?” Sansa says, after they’ve been on the road for two weeks, staying away from the main paths and instead stumbling through the forests and streams to kill their scent, even though he doesn’t think there’s anything following them, he remembers how well he could smell as Grey Wind.

And then he remembers how he’ll never have another wolf dream again, and tries desperately to hold onto every detail.

“No.” Robb tells her frankly.

Her body shudders like a wave of sadness has washed through her, and when she looks up her eyes are full of tears. Mother’s eyes, Robb thinks, and tries not to remember how she had screamed his name as Roose Bolton had plunged an axe into his heart.

“How-”

“A priest of the Lord of Light. A god of fire from the East I can’t pronounce the name of.”

“So you didn’t go to the Seven Heavens?”

“I didn’t go anywhere. It was like I was stuck. And then I was back. How did you know?”

“You don’t sleep.” She says dully, “You don’t smile or laugh. You don’t get scared or annoyed. You’re not… you don’t…”

“I’m sorry.” Robb says, but he isn’t. He doesn’t know how to be sorry anymore.

“Don’t say that,” Sansa says sharply, and the fierceness in her tone would have shocked him had he been able to shock, “Never apologise. You came back.”

“The person I used to be, he’s gone. You do understand that, don’t you? I think part of me got left behind when I was brought back.”

“You are my brother,” Sansa tells him, chin wobbling, and he thinks detachedly that the roots of her ginger hair are beginning to come through her roots again, before feeling the sticky warmth of her palms on his cheeks “and you are in front of me. You are alive, and you saved me. Your name is Robb Stark. You are the king in the North-”

“I was,” Robb protests, but doesn’t pull away, the sharpness from her uncut fingernails created little crescent moon imprints in the soft skin of his cheeks, “But not anymore. I came to get you because I knew I should have rescued you the first time, saved you, but I was cocky and stupid and selfish and-”

“And I forgive you.” Sansa told him, and placed one long, hard kiss on the side of his mouth, the very same place she had the last time the two of them had been at Winterfell together, and she was going South and he was the Stark in Winterfell.

“You forgive me,” Robb said dumbly, blinking hard. His eyes were watering so hard suddenly, and his vision blurred so her face was only a foggy palette of pinks and reds and blues.

“You came back.” She says fiercely, “There is nothing you could do that I would not forgive you for, you hear me? I forgive you. I forgave you the moment I saw you in King’s Landing. I forgive you. And now,” she continued, “we are going home.”

**Author's Note:**

> I am considering making this a series, so please leave a comment if you think that is a good or bad idea as well as whether or not you liked the story :)


End file.
